CHENEY — Six Eastern Washington University track and field student-athletes have been selected to the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) All-Academic team for the 2020-21 school year.
In addition, for the 14th-consecutive year, the women’s team was honored on the organization’s All-Academic team list. The Eagles had an accumulative grade point average of 3.52 to rank 83rd among the 252 schools nationwide honored for both indoor and outdoor track and field. A 3.0 accumulative team grade point average is the requirement to be honored for the team awards.
Representing Eastern Washington among the more than 1,100 women selected for All-Academic honors were javelin thrower Emmanuella Engle, All-America pole vaulter Morgan Fossen, thrower Vernice Keyes and pole vaulter Katrina Terry. More than 850 men were recognized, including a pair of Eastern record-breaking performers in hurdler Parker Bowden and distance runner Justin Roosma.
All six of Eastern’s honored student-athletes have at least a 3.85 grade point average at EWU. Engle is a graduate student in communications with a 4.0 GPA, and Fossen majored in communicative sciences and disorders (3.85), Keyes in computer science (3.92) and Terry in design (3.94). Bowden was a graduate student in business administration (3.94) and Roosma is an exercise science major (3.93).
In addition, all six were honored on Big Sky Conference All-Academic teams in the 2020-21 season (five of them both indoors and outdoors), with a collective total of 29 honors thus far in their careers. Terry leads the way with eight, followed by Keyes (six), Bowden (six), Fossen (five), Engle (two) and Roosma (two).
Fossen represented Eastern Washington at the NCAA Outdoor Championships this season in the pole vault, clearing a personal-best 13-9 1/4 to rank second all-time in the EWU record books. The mark helped her finish 10th overall and earn second team All-America honors, becoming just the third female in NCAA Division I at Eastern Washington to earn All-American honors.
After winning the league title with an effort of 13-1, Terry competed in the West Regional and placed 26th with a vault of 12-10 1/4. Prior to the league championships, she set a personal best in the vault at the Canyon Invitational where she jumped 13-3 1/2 to earn a spot on Eastern’s all-time top-10 list at No. 7.
Engle closed her short EWU career by throwing 146-10 and placing 36th at the West Regional. Engle placed sixth in the javelin with a throw of 156-0 at the Big Sky Championships on May 15. The University of Washington transfer had entered the championships with the fifth-best throw in the javelin, an effort of 158-3 on May 1 which moved her to No. 8 on EWU’s all-time leaders list.
Keyes had a throw of 182-11 on May 27 at the West Regional, and was the runner-up at the Big Sky Championships with a throw of 181-4. She had entered the championships with a mark of 198-2 on April 30 to rank No. 2 in the league.
Bowden won EWU’s first-ever Big Sky title in the high hurdles with a 13.58 time on May 15 in Ogden, Utah., to earn the meet’s male Top Performer honor and advance to the NCAA West Preliminary Round. His effort broke the meet record of 13.68, and was just .16 seconds from the Big Sky all-time mark of 13.42.
Roosma earned All-Big Sky honors in the steeplechase with a third-place finish on May 14, finishing with a time of 9:07.78 in the altitude of Ogden, Utah. He broke the school record in the steeplechase on April 30 with a time of 8:54.69 to rank fourth in the league entering the competition.
At the conclusion of the 2020-21 season, Fossen and Bowden were chosen as EWU’s recipients of the Big Sky Conference Scholar-Athlete Award for the 2020-21 school year. The award honors the “best of the best” of the conference’s more than 3,500 student-athletes. One senior male and one senior female from each school in the league are recognized for their athletic and academic achievements.
To qualify for the individual awards, the student-athlete must have compiled a cumulative grade point average of 3.25 and have met specific criteria in competition. For the indoor season, a student-athlete must have finished the regular season ranked in the national top 96 in an individual event or ranked in the national top 48 (collective listing) in a relay event on the final season performance lists compiled by TFRRS.org. Or, for the outdoor season, a student-athlete must have participated in any round of the NCAA Division I Championships (including preliminary rounds) and ranked in the top 48 in the East or West in the TFFRS final regional rankings.
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